The IPCC goes for video bling (and CGI enhanced doom)

The IPCC has produced a video on its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The first part on the Working Group I contribution to AR5 is now available. The other parts will be released with the successive approvals of the other two Working Group contributions and the Synthesis Report in the course of 2014.

Watch the video:

A few points.

Immediately you can see this isn’t produced as a science video, but more in the style of a glossy sales pitch complete with CGI.

It’s nine minutes of climate cliché bingo. I lost count of the number of crumbling blocks of ice, dried out lake beds, floods, and dark backlit water vapour shots, all delivered in a fast, almost “subliminal advertising” style. The only disappointment was the lack of stranded polar bears on ice floes. The commentary regurgitates all the usual mantras (Paul Matthews)

There is only a very brief flash of the distinctly unscary temperature record at 2:05. If you blink you might miss it. (Paul Matthews)

Climate models are by far not as perfect as it is suggested in the video – in fact most climate models cannot even reproduce the observed annual global mean temperature (h/t Eduardo Zorita)

Many of the scientists on the video act almost as if they are prophets seeing the future, yet there is no mention of the wholesale failure of climate models to match observations. It the sort of sweep it under the rug hyping you expect from televangelists. I loved the scene where Reto Knutti sits behind a computer montor group boldly labeled “PROJECTIONS”, as if done specifically for the video.

You are immediately hit with a video advertisement, something which is controlled from the poster’s YouTube account. Why would the IPCC need advertising revenue?

The answer comes in the credits, the video was produced by “Snöball Films” for the IPCC. They bill themselves as “Snöball Film AS is Norway’s leading environment for the development and production of informational and educational film.”, so apparently the IPCC has made a deal to allow them to get ad revenue from YouTube. With 1500+ views so far, it doesn’t look like they’ll get much, OTOH its more view than serial whiner Collin Maessen has had in several months for his “No, Global Warming Hasn’t Stopped” video.

Nice piece of propaganda with all the vital elements. What stands out to me is the one-sidedness of the video, ignoring the inconvenient truths from Antarctica, failed models and the 15-year warming pause (see 2:05 mark above). And note how these scientists try to come across as prophets who can see centuries ahead. Just the overall air of know-it-all arrogance these scientists take on makes you want to puke on your keyboard.

In summary, any scientist believing the nonsense needs a doctor, or an education in science – beginning from first grade.

It’s worth noting, I think, that Stocker’s “key messages” (found in this video and elsewhere) made it into (at least the latest version I saw last night of) the draft of this off-key “Warsaw concerto”.

When there are snow storm as far south as Texas I doubt anyone in North America gives a crap about the IPCC and their blackmail schemes, let alone one more You Tube idiotic video amongst a world of other moronic videos on that site. That is unless the entire IPCC is twirking on the video – then it would be hilarious! I’d watch that.

Today Germany’s flagship political daily, the renowned Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), which has long been a disciple of global warming religion … daring to feature the global warming-blasphemous chart that no German was ever supposed to see. ***

The most striking climate revelation in the era of this report is the gap between current observations and all the climate model predictions. All the IPCC climate scientists choose to ignore this and thus their role in climate science history is now on the record.

BBC Newshour: Julian Marshall begins with reference to Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda and goes to lengthy piece on the Typhoon as soon as he finishes with McGrath & the Warsaw talks. obviously, MSM intends to continue linking every weather event to CAGW, directly or by association.

BBC’s Matt McGrath says, in the documents, they want the numbers PRE-COOKED before Paris 2015. ( PRE-COOKED IS SO CAGW). Hedegaard plays the bossy schoolmarm, ordering delegates to go home, do their homework:

LISTEN TO FIRST SEVEN MINUTES:

AUDIO: 1:30: BBC: Newshour: UN Climate Change Talks
Julian Marshall: worth remembering the climate talks began with Typhoon Haiyan etc etc etc etc…
3:30: Connie Hedegaard: they have to go straight home, do their homework, decide their contributions, in good time for Paris…
6:09: McGrath to Julian Marshall: they are talking about having committments(??) from all countries…all the big countries(?)… nobody wants repeat of Copenhagen; they want it all PRE-COOKED in the terminology, they want it PRE-COOKED when they go to Paris, so they just sign the deal then.
Julian Marshall begins Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda story.http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/newshour

Great glossary I borrowed: Sorry if this isn’t on topic Anthony. Forgive me.

CLIMATE CHANGE GLOSSARY

PEER REVIEW: The act of banding together a group of like-minded academics with a funding conflict of interest, for the purpose of squeezing out any research voices that threaten the multi-million dollar government grant gravy train.

SETTLED SCIENCE: Betrayal of the scientific method for politics or money or both.

DENIER: Anyone who suspects the truth.

CLIMATE CHANGE: What has been happening for billions of years, but should now be flogged to produce ‘panic for profit.’

CLIMATE SCIENTIST: A person skilled in spouting obscure, scientific-sounding jargon that has the effect of deflecting requests for “DATA” by “DENIERS.” Also skilled at affecting an aura of “Smartest Person in the Room” to buffalo gullible legislators and journalists.

JUNK SCIENCE: The use of invalid scientific evidence resulting in findings of causation which simply cannot be justified, understood, from the standpoint of the current state of credible scientific knowledge.

Again, we see another blatantly expensive, well-funded, professionally produced film bursting with climate change melodrama which achieves nothing. This is because the ‘true believers’, who are already hoodwinked (with an uncritical acceptance that conforms to the IPCC’s opinionated ‘orthodox’ beliefs), will simply watch it and say the film tells them what they already know. For those of us who think CAGW is utter nonsense, the film provides yet another reason for us to become angry and rebellious.

Unlike this propaganda, which falls short by simply saying ‘CO2 has increased’, there needs to be a film which includes statistical emphasis like “Did you know that only 0.040% of the entire air we breath is CO2. This is a tiny amount. Yes, it’s not a lot is it. Other atmospheric gas is 99.96%.” and “Not all this CO2 is our fault either. 96.775% of total CO2 is naturally occurring which only leaves 3.225% of all the CO2 being man-made . . . . so when we tell you that this tiny incy wincy amount of man-made gas is causing our world to warm up (slightly), then we will understand if you think we’re mad.”

Footnote: Close down all crematoriums I say! Humans must no longer die. Think of all that anthropogenic CO2 being emitted from the combustion of wooden caskets and human remains inside those oil or gas fired furnaces running @ 870 C. We must save the planet. Now.

Not quite sure what you are trying to prove here Bill as no-one is claiming temperatures have not risen since the Little Ice Age, no-one is claiming climate does not change, no-one is sugesting there is no GHGe and that CO2 does not have some influence on “warming”. The science is very clear in this respesct. What is in doubt is how much does that ~40% increase in CO2 (~3% of 400ppm/v) effect climate, in a bad way, through warming given we know the maximum “warming” effect of CO2 occurs below ~80ppm/v, and is largely saturated out by ~250ppm/v. So far, there is no evidence to support the claim that ~3% of 400ppm/v is DRIVING climate to change in a bad way. None outside computer games that is!

[This was intended as a comment on the YouTube version of the video. I couldn’t post it because Google are stopping me from commenting unless I share my life with them on Google+. It’s probably too long anyway but I thought I should post it at WUWT as well to show everyone what they’re up to with graph manipulation. If anyone wants to copy and paste it or sections of it to YouTube either under my name (but with no additions please) or under their own name (with any additions, fine) then be my guest. I am dead sick of these charlatans- Scute]

////////

Comment:

From Scute

For the scientists, video contributors and alarmist sycophants who have commented above: I’m surprised you have the gall to show your faces without reckoning on someone showing up to call you on your brazen manipulation of graph data. I’m that someone and here goes:

1) On the first graph, you shaved fully 0.1 degree C from the 1998 temperature- a full decade of warming- so as to enhance the slope and truncate the pause. That is nothing short of a lie.

2) You chose not to include the 2013 rebound in Arctic ice. Qin Dahe specifically states in the video that you are assessing data from “the last 6 years”. We have been paying you for “the last six years” and that presumably includes funding this video so we expect to see all your data. Why are you withholding it?

3) The ocean heat content graph stops in 2010. Argo data shows no rise in upper ocean temperature from 2003-2013. We’ve paid you for 6 years and you’ve given us 3 so that we would just see it creeping relentlessly up to ‘the present’ with no flatlining. What’s more, you left the plot floating way above the time axis to make it impossible to track the plot down to the relevant year and notice the trick. It has a great wadge of negative-scaled cumulative energy to match the positive for no reason other than to shove the plot away from the time axis. No one talks of -200 e22 j ocean heat content.

4) The sea-level rise graph stops in 2008, just one year after the 2007 AR4 report and five years short of the present. If the situation is so urgent, why are you using one sixth of your new data since 2007?

5) The RCP model projections, shamefully, still show rocketing temperatures between 1998 and 2013, just as you did in SPM.10. I know there is no time scale but the cumulative emissions are a good proxy for the time scale on the x axis in this period. On SPM.10 this is a 0.33 C hike during a 15-year known flatline- which is a 0.33 C lie. This is the same misleading graph but with the added confusion of having the decadal mean data plots stripped out. In SPM.10, these showed the heady slope upwards from 2000 to 2010 so at least we had an outside chance of catching you there. No chance here though- no one can readily discern where the pause should be- if they even know it exists. This graph shows modelled hindcasts/projections so why are you substituting an obvious 0.33 C error for the known instrumental record that shows zero rise in that period? No amount of protesting that this is the way you do your projections at the office will wash- you are potentially showing this to a billion plus people for all of 7 seconds. They all think that is the real temperature.

5) Two graphs have strange scaling: 1.6 units per decade and 1 unit for every 2.5 years. This makes it even harder to see the plots truncated in 2008 and 2010 which are already floating way above the axis.

6) You show two graphs for five seconds. No one can read the axes in that time. All they see is lines wriggling upwards. Moreover, you actually plot the graphs on screen and then cut away within two seconds for the ocean heat content graph and sea level graph. Tellingly, the cut is within one second of completing the sea ice graph with its glaring 2013 omission. Plotting on screen gives the impression that the graph is shown for longer.

I have spent the best part of an evening taking screen shots, blowing them up and measuring them with a set square and ruler. I resent the fact that I have to spend my valuable time catching out and calling to account the people who’s wages I pay and research I fund, along with a billion of the world’s citizens- and all because those very people we pay want to bamboozle us. It’s utterly shameful.

Exactly my point. ‘no-one is claiming temperatures have not risen since the last ice age’ or for that matter since 1850′s.”

Given it is completely rediculous to claim (I am assuming your use of 1850 start point is from NOAA?) to have measured global land and sea AVERAGE temperatures since 1850. The ~3% of 400 parts per million by volume (ppm/v) reference I use is from the IPCC. That is, the annual estimated human contribution to CO2 represented as ~3% of 400ppm/v (Total). That’s ~12ppm/v annually, of which ~50% is absorbed. This fraction, according to the IPCC hypothesis, is DRIVING climate to change in a bad way. Without understanding this basic fact presented by the IPCC and the, so called, 97% of alarmist scientists, is not a great start for you.

Why does this fraudulent video (which offers many of the long-debunked myths, including a wrong explanation of the glaciation cycle correlations) only boast 10 negative thumbs-down? Have the WUWT readers voted on it at all? They should.

thanks for your explanation. I am not sure what you are saying about ‘basic fact’ that I am not understanding. I understand that CO2 is increasing in concentration in the atmosphere, I was just unsure of your notation. If you read your note, you will see what I mean. Your ~3% of 400ppm/v didn’t spell out that it was the rate of increase. So once again we are on the same page.

I have to ask you about your ‘so called, 97% of alarmist scientists’. I was under the impression the 97% figured referred to all climate scientists. Not just the alarmist ones, or are you intimating that nearly all climate scientists are alarmist?

If that was the case, it would be truly extraordinary. If nearly every scientist in a given discipline agreed with each other that things were dire, then that would make me sit up and take notice. If 97% of doctors told smoking would give me lung cancer, I would give up smoking. If 97% of meteorologists told me a storm was coming, I would not set sail in my boat.

Surely, not all climate scientists have come to an alarming conclusion. What about Spencer, Watts and those 30,000 scientists on the Oregon Petition, they are not alarmists are they?

When the “scientists” were boring out the ice cores, I was expecting the ice sheet to crack and one of the scientists to heroically rescue the cores prior to making an impossible 20 foot jump across the widening infinitely deep chasm, as occurred in “The Day After Tomorrow”!

That aside, total propaganda; Josef Goebels would have been proud of it!

I am alone in thinking that the global ice graph looks scarey?
Imagine for a moment that we were worried about global cooling, rather than warming, wouldn’t we be looking closely at the right-hand side of this graphic? To my layman’s eyes, it looks at odds with the past.

I refuse to watch the video as I suspect it will be a waste of my paid for bandwidth. Did they include the model projected greening of the biosphere? Since they use models to see into the future they may have seen the following paper. Maybe the paper came in after the cut-off date. :)

Abstract – 2013
A model-based constraint on CO2 fertilisation
“…….Using output from a 671-member ensemble of transient GENIE simulations, we build an emulator of the change in atmospheric CO2 concentration change since the preindustrial period. We use this emulator to sample the 28-dimensional input parameter space. A Bayesian calibration of the emulator output suggests that the increase in gross primary productivity (GPP) in response to a doubling of CO2 from preindustrial values is very likely (90% confidence) to exceed 20%, with a most likely value of 40–60%. It is important to note that we do not represent all of the possible contributing mechanisms to the terrestrial sink. The missing processes are subsumed into our calibration of CO2 fertilisation, which therefore represents the combined effect of CO2 fertilisation and additional missing processes……..”
doi:10.5194/bg-10-339-2013

>>>GeeJam, ““Did you know that only 0.040% of the entire air we breath is CO2. This is a tiny amount. Yes, it’s not a lot is it. Other atmospheric gas is 99.96%.”’

And – all of this “chaos” is because 50ppm of the atmosphere changed from “something” to CO2. That is 1 part in 20,000. So we have an atmosphere that acts like a greenhouse they tell us, and that greenhouse changed by 1 in 20,000 parts or .005%. That .005% represents all the “stuff” we are putting up there, they tell me. Yet a 1F rise in temp from natural processes, would speed vegetation decay and CO2 out gassing from a warmer ocean.

We need to do a video, or maybe a movie. We could call it “The Day Before Yesterday”. Catchy, huh. It could show a warmer, naturally induced climate inreasing food supply and over-all human welfare. Then the bad warmistas get involved and cause devastation by reducing our carbon based energy supplies, outlawing nuclear and so on. Not happy with that, they sow SO2 into the atmosphere and bring on a premature glaciation in attempts to save their beachfront condos from the nonexistant rising of ocean levels.

What do you think? I should go to Hollywood, right, not that other place everyone keeps telling me to go?

Very slick video with some really great scenes. The folks that put this together are quite talented.
A room full of “scientists” in a desperate, serious attempt to understand and control the climate, all staring intently at their laptops. What was on the screens didn’t show, so what they were studying is left up to the viewers’ imaginations. Airline schedules for the next high cost junket?
We had a climate scientist in a fully glassed high rise corner office with two video monitors on his desk. One is labeled “projections” so you just know he is getting the real skinny on the future of the climate.
I found very convincing IPCC lead climate scientists discussing their models and the serious implications derived from their climate models. Are those the same ones that don’t predict worth a hoot and are averaged to give us the real idea? The average of bad results is a good prediction?
The chartsmanship, as has been mentioned, was truly outstanding. And it looks like they showed CO2 lagging temperature but it looks a bit shifted than I recall.
Time frames for charts and statements shifted at almost a dizzying speed, but most were short, I seem to recall using 1980 as a base. They did mention highest CO2 in 800,000 years, without mentioning that CO2 for the last 800,000 years has been historically low. Why not 8,000,000 years as a comparison?
I found very convincing lead scientist telling me that they understood the climate drivers and that they could control the climate.
I was convinced that this was a very slick propaganda piece, but do agree with the statement that “we will have to adapt” to a changing climate. Doesn’t that that about sum up all of human history? We’re here because we adapted.

Bill,
You’ve repeated the 97% figure a number of times. Is there a new study out, because Cooks’ study deriving these figures has been thoroughly debunked as very selective editing?
You stated that CO2 was the only GHG and the other 99.96% of the atmospheric gasses were not. I thought there were others with H2O being the GHG with the overriding affect. If this has changed I’d really like a reference so that I can petition USEPA to stop making me report all those other GHG’s.

In 2009, Australia’s Prime MInister, Tony Abbott, stated that the IPCC’s climate science (assessment) was crap. He was right seeing that the IPCC now seemingly agrees and therefore now relies on propaganda to prop up its mantra rather than science.

Meanwhile, Tony Abbott has today declared that he wants Australia’s carbon tax repealed before Christmas. He has put immense pressure on Labor and Green Senators to abide by the wishes of the majority of Australian voters and vote to repeal the most repugnant legislation ever introduced in Australia that has been economically damaging.

1. A Snöball’s chance in hell, and they made the most of it.
2. It’s good to get the catastrophists on the record as often and dramatically as possible: It raises the level of difficulty of their climb down.
3. AGW was scientists’ most dramatic power grab, ever, and the relationship between the public and science will never be the same, nor should it be.

“We have looked at all the evidence that tell us how the climate has changed in the past and presently”—. This opening statement is the first major untruth in this film. No unbiased or independent scientists can look at the past climate history and conclude that there is zero possibility of major pauses[ of 30 years or more] in global climate temperatures during the present century . Not to present this equal possibility or risk scenario that climate may actually remain unchanged or cool during the next 100 year period is a major flaw of IPCC science. Not only is a major pause in warming a real possibility but past climate history tells us that this could happen not once but possibly twice before this century is finished. So many of the doom and gloom pictures that they paint may turn out to be false and just pure fabrications . The real tragedy is that they are sidetracking world attention and energies away from preparing for possible severe winter cooling, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, to spending money for a non existing threat. Many northern countries may find themselves totally unprepared in terms of energy supplies and infrastructure for the cold winters ahead. This deliberate or unexpected oversight will turnout to be the black swan of global warming science.

To me this film is purely a fund raising film in order to raise $100 billion yearly for UNITED NATIONS from the developing nations and sustain a 1-2 $ billion per day global warming business. It will not help to prevent climate change at all.

RockyRoad says: November 23, 2013 at 9:40 pm
I’m glad we have Global Warming or we wouldn’t have any weather at all…. /sarc!

Now that you mention it: the Globe is Warming every day! And the Sun rises every day!

My layman guess would be, although correlation does not imply causation, that the SUN might be causing Weather, and consequently determine Climate! Eureka!

OMG, might climate scientists have missed this link? Might the sun be the driver of climate change? They seem to be rather obsessed with CO2, which follows temperature and thus follows climate change. They might be very very wrong!

Bill says:”And they should also point out the 99% of the atmosphere’s other gases have no greenhouse effect.”

Oh my! Bill, you’ve been misinformed. Not only are there other greenhouse gases such as water vapor, ozone, and methane in the atmosphere, but the greenhouse effect doesn’t depend on the presence of greenhouse gases. Even a 100% nitrogen atmosphere gaining heat through convection from a surface will radiate IR in proportion to its temperature (S-B Law) thus slowing the radiant cooling of the surface (i.e.: GHE). CO2 is a greenhouse gas and certainly contributes to the greenhouse effect, but it is a very small part and most of its contribution to the greenhouse effect is secured prior to reaching the minimum needed for plants to survive.

The narrator sounds a lot like the one on the BASF We Create Chemistry commercial.
The IPCC are pushing a product, nothing more. It’s all about hype, and using slick psychological persuasion tactics to sway people’s emotions. Science doesn’t enter into it one bit. Oh yeah, I thumbed it down (come on, folks!).

Wait, they show some computer graphics of Greenland and some meltwater rushing into the sea, and then this scientist guy says ” the amount of ice melt is six times as much as observed” – looking very concerned – Ahem…. when the models show six times as much ice melt as observed I agree one should be concerned about the models, and maybe euthanize them quicklly with an “rm /*” .

The true believers will not analyze the words anyway, but if you do analyze them, this is a terrible mockumentary by biased editing.

John West says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:40 am
“Bill says:
”And they should also point out the 99% of the atmosphere’s other gases have no greenhouse effect.”

Oh my! Bill, you’ve been misinformed. Not only are there other greenhouse gases such as water vapor, ozone, and methane in the atmosphere, but the greenhouse effect doesn’t depend on the presence of greenhouse gases. Even a 100% nitrogen atmosphere gaining heat through convection from a surface will radiate IR in proportion to its temperature (S-B Law) thus slowing the radiant cooling of the surface (i.e.: GHE).”

What the heck’s up with the x-axis at 1.59 anyway?
Other’s have already pointed out that, as we knew, the temperature leads the CO2 rise in this graph anyway, so it doesn’t show what they imply it does.
But there’s something weird about the zero position on the x-axis too.

“The Stefan-Boltzmann Law applies to blackbodies and greybodies; gas molecules are neither.”

In a nitrogen atom that has gained energy perhaps through a collision electron(s) move to a higher energy state, as the electrons return to a lower energy state IR is emitted. The S-B Law still applies it’s just with GHG there’s the extra vibrational degrees of freedom to absorb and emit IR.

John West says:
November 24, 2013 at 8:44 am
“In a nitrogen atom that has gained energy perhaps through a collision electron(s) move to a higher energy state, as the electrons return to a lower energy state IR is emitted. The S-B Law still applies it’s just with GHG there’s the extra vibrational degrees of freedom to absorb and emit IR.”

For all practical matters, O2 and N2 and other diatomic gas molecules are transparent to IR. So how could one make them emit IR? By heating them up enough until they emit on one of their weak and distantly spaced emission lines. Of course; when you heat up any gas enough it will become excited and emit photons. That’s trivial.

Yet, this is not a blackbody spectrum but a line spectrum.

There’s no point in arguing about it. You can listen and learn to use the right terms for the right phenomena. A pure N2 atmosphere would be transparent for IR. Blackbody radiation from the surface would on such a planet leave directly to space. IR radiation from the sun would hit the surface directly. Would it be warmer or colder than Earth? I don’t know. Half of all energy in the solar spectrum is IR; which currently cannot hit the Earth’s surface entirely unhindered, as our atmosphere is not transparent to all IR, due to the triatomic gases CO2 and H2O.

And just for completeness, the S-B law does NOT apply to line spectra of gases; I seem to have the definition on my side.
“The Stefan–Boltzmann law, also known as Stefan’s law, describes the power radiated from a black body in terms of its temperature. Specifically, the Stefan–Boltzmann law states that the total energy radiated per unit surface area of a black body across all wavelengths per unit time (also known as the black-body radiant exitance or emissive power), j^{\star}, is directly proportional to the fourth power of the black body’s thermodynamic temperature T”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan-Boltzmann_Law

So, if every second of every day, 30% of the inbound solar energy hits this N2+O2 “IR transparent” atmosphere and does [not] even get to the surface ….

Where does that 30% inbound energy go, and how is it accounted for in NASA/GISS/Mann’s simplified flat-plate flat-earth disk radiation model? Does not the “perfectly transparent N2 and O2 atmosphere” have to re-radiate all of this 30% in some way or another?

C02 might be causing the oceans to warm and the Arctic sea ice to melt but then again it might not.If I was doing a Sudoku puzzle and one of the numbers that I was thinking of putting in the grid might be correct but I also realised that it could be wrong then I would not put it in the grid until I was sure that there were no other possible numbers that could go in that position in the grid.The way that c02 is seen as the only cause of warming we realise is likely to be wrong therefore we should take our time in solving this puzzle and not risk getting it wrong.The issue has become political and might be true is seen as good enough to many of those pushing the global warming scare.

“But there’s something weird about the zero position on the x-axis too.”

I think they shunted the ‘0’ over so that they could show the recent rise in CO2 to 395 ppm without the line sitting vertically over the y axis as it would if the 0 was at the foot of the y-axis.

I would say fair cop to that seeing as that’s a known value but it’s just about the only legitimate fudge in all 5 graphs (see my comment above re the disgraceful manipulation of the data on this graph and the other four including deciding to slash 0.1C off the 1998 temperature on this graph).

RACookPE1978 says:
November 24, 2013 at 9:30 am
“So, if every second of every day, 30% of the inbound solar energy hits this N2+O2 “IR transparent” atmosphere and does even get to the surface ….”

50%, not 30.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight
which says:
“Sunlight in space at the top of Earth’s atmosphere at a power of 1366 watts/m2 is composed (by total energy) of about 50% infrared light, 40% visible light, and 10% ultraviolet light.”)

“Where does that 30% inbound energy go, and how is it accounted for in NASA/GISS/Mann’s simplified flat-plate flat-earth disk radiation model?”
Just search Earth’s radiative balance on google images and you get many diagrams.
Some of the IR must be absorbed and re-radiated by triatomic gases, half of the reradiated photons must go up to space again. Some of the IR must be absorbed by cloud droplets and build up charge separation, or heat them up, or evaporate molecules, and some blackbody radiation from the droplets results, part of which goes up to space, but on different frequencies than the absorbed IR – as the droplet is a blackbody.

” Does not the “perfectly transparent N2 and O2 atmosphere” have to re-radiate all of this 30% in some way or another?”

No. Just passes through it to the surface. The surface emits blackbody radiation that passes straight through the atmosphere directly to space again. Such a planet would have an atmosphere that is warmer than the surface at night. The planet could cool only through radiative cooling of the surface. The atmosphere would be a short-term thermal buffer.

@DirkH: “And just for completeness, the S-B law does NOT apply to line spectra of gases; I seem to have the definition on my side.”

Strictly yes. The SB law owes to the bump and grind of atoms in a solid. The spectra is just a snapshot of the distribution of energies in the collisions. And from there you can get funky with confounding things like diamonds and phonons. But given this, the collision of gas molecules carries the same consideration.

However, comma, when a line spectra is absorbed — IR in this case — then the frequency of the bond is higher. So on collision, and in the sum of all velocities, you’ve got faster race cars on the track. Some will certainly be lower speed collisions than otherwise for precisely this reason. And some will be higher. But otherwise you shouldn’t expect that the distribution will do anything differently than what gives rise to the Planck curve in general. Though, if you want to be a quantum purist about things and go full particulate, then line spectra applies to everything: That is, black body spectra is emitted as a continuous affiar, but the absorpta of various solids is still line spectra. The only thing changed is our toleration for statistical aggregates.

@RACookPE1978: Yes, it must get the 30% out, at some point, to return things to equilibrium. Though, of course, we don’t have any global equilibrium anywhere in reality. Radiation budget models that take GE as a foundational concept and then don’t deal with correctives for the actual non-GE conditions, and convection/conduction, will always have problems. And if those correctives are made, and everything is then stated as radiation equivalents, will present a possibly correct but wholly useless consideration. It’s a terminal trivia, and using it as an input gets you a GIGO condition. Same thing that occurs if you convert all alpha/beta/gamma radiation to banana equivalents of dosage and then try to state something intelligent about biological effects on the basis of bananas.

DirkH says:”For all practical matters, O2 and N2 and other diatomic gas molecules are transparent to IR. “

Agree.

”when you heat up any gas enough it will become excited and emit photons. That’s trivial.”

It’s not trivial, even if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere there would still be a greenhouse effect. The amount of energy gained by the atmosphere through convection and evaporation/condensation exceeds the energy gained (net transfer) from IR emitted by the surface.

”Yet, this is not a blackbody spectrum but a line spectrum.”

So?

”There’s no point in arguing about it.”

True, but there’s no reason why we couldn’t discuss it.

” You can listen and learn to use the right terms for the right phenomena.”

There’s no reason to get nasty. I’m certainly open to learning. I’ve been doing it for almost half a century. I was merely trying to set the record straight from Bill’s comment awkwardly claiming that CO2 was solely responsible for the GHE.

”Blackbody radiation from the surface would on such a planet leave directly to space.”

True, but heat from convection wouldn’t.

”IR radiation from the sun would hit the surface directly. Would it be warmer or colder than Earth? I don’t know. Half of all energy in the solar spectrum is IR; which currently cannot hit the Earth’s surface entirely unhindered, as our atmosphere is not transparent to all IR, due to the triatomic gases CO2 and H2O.”

Agree, this hasn’t been adequately discussed IMO.

”the S-B law does NOT apply to line spectra of gases”

From the wiki page you linked:

”it follows from the law that the temperature of the Sun is 2.57 times greater than the temperature of the lamella, so Stefan got a value of 5430 °C or 5700 K (the modern value is 5778 K”

“The scientific evidence is stronger than ever: better and more observations, improved understanding of the climate system response.”

I think if Chinese scientists are convinced that the world’s economy needs to be transformed, the very least they could do is admit that the 30+ million deaths during the Great Leap were not in fact from natural disasters. They were the result of the Maoists transforming the Chinese economy. There is no discussion or admission of the starvation and deaths under Great Leap policies within China’s tightly controlled internet.

Instead, we have Chinese operatives such as Mae Wan Ho calling for an end to agriculture in the US as presently practiced (on behalf of the UN), and Chinese “journalists” recently being called for a mandatory three-month government training program for all journalists.

The IPCC is a well-funded and still quite popular and charismatic propaganda machine. In fact it purposefully acts this way at the end of this video. It pronounces a message. Three of them.

So when did scientific research become a “message” to the world? Has this happened in our past? Yes. Frequently. And it nearly always ended in great harm.

Why do masses of people still listen to these kinds of messages (“we must do something about [those we don’t like]”, etc…)? Haven’t we learned from the past? Can we not still view captioned tapes of the past showing great throngs of people listening to charismatic leaders telling us that if something is not done it will be the ruin of us all? Can we not still read of the horrific results of such folly? Do we not still shield our eyes from the photographic horror of what we have wrought?

It seems bizarre to ask, but are we still capable of following such nonsense even though we know it can bring harm to others and send us eventually over the cliff as well? Yes. Only our toys and weapons have grown more advanced. We are still the same and still capable of group-think that can make us do what is wrong but think it right.

We don’t need to fear death from climate any more than we needed to fear our destruction at the hands of some ethnic group we learned to hate. But we most certainly need to fear the intent on the part of “messengers” who message to us that we must find a final “solution” to a trumped up impending catastrophe. If we sit silent, thinking some other entity will put a stop to it we will surely repeat the past.

The three final points that the film concludes with need further comment.

“Warming is unequivocal.”
The past warming trend 0.75 C per century is real but the latest IPCC projected best estimate trend of 1.8-4 C or the likely trend of 0.3-6.4 C for the various scenarios are again just worst case projections with little chance of ever happening as the models on which these projections are based on have proven to be unreliable and wrong as they exaggerate the warming many fold .

“Human influence on climate is clear “

Yes, humans do influence weather but the impact is minor compared to natural variables. The claim by IPCC that it is extremely likely that humans caused more than half the global temperature increase since the 1950’s is plain speculation only in my opinion . .Natural climate variables like the oceans which have 60 -70 year cycle period and high solar levels were more likely the major cause of the warming between 1970 and 2000 . This will be apparent soon as we enter a period of global cooling but co2 levels are rising, completely opposite of what IPCC wrongly claims

The past 17 year climate pause has clearly shown that greenhouse gas levels are rising but the level of climate change in terms of global temperatures and most extreme events remains unchanged.

Reducing man made green house gas emissions will have very little impact on climate change but it will waste a lot of money which is more needed in other areas of our economy, like rebuilding after naturally caused disasters due to floods and winds . The real enemy is air pollution but carbon dioxide is not a pollutant as falsely characterized by the EPA.

Regarding the 97% of scientists….I attended (as a sceptic) one of gore’s “talks” on gw recently.
The speaker went on and on about cagw. When he showed the 97% of scientists gragh it was of
AGW not Cagw . No one noticed this excempt for for the writer of this comment. .JP

John West says:
November 24, 2013 at 10:11 am
“”when you heat up any gas enough it will become excited and emit photons. That’s trivial.”

It’s not trivial, even if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere there would still be a greenhouse effect. The amount of energy gained by the atmosphere through convection and evaporation/condensation exceeds the energy gained (net transfer) from IR emitted by the surface. ”

In the case of a pure N2/O2 atmosphere no meaningful amounts of energy are radiatively transferred to and from the atmosphere. In this case, all energy transfer to and from the atmosphere would happen through conduction at the interface to the surface.

“From the wiki page you linked:

”it follows from the law that the temperature of the Sun is 2.57 times greater than the temperature of the lamella, so Stefan got a value of 5430 °C or 5700 K (the modern value is 5778 K”

So, it applies to plasma but not gases?”

The sun is not a cloud of plasma but liquid from the surface on down, and therefore has a blackbody spectrum. I don’t see any application of the S-B law to gases.

I stand corrected. The end includes three messages AND a call to action to significantly reduce greenhouse gas “usage”. There is only one way to do that: reduce the population of CO2 exhalers. I am guessing that many of these delegates that contribute research, attend meetings and support the IPCC believe in such drastic measures. This includes world leaders. History repeats.

When there are snow storm as far south as Texas I doubt anyone in North America gives a crap about the IPCC and their blackmail schemes …

You’ve got that right brother! It was just the week before last we saw 80 some degrees F as a high here near Dallas, TX! Presently I’m seeing 32.7 on the digital gauge … there is a Winter Storm Warning in effect with the ‘promise’ of an inch of various precip forms over the next 24 – 36 hrs owing to a large Low Press. system moving eastward out of the west/southwest US.

I do wish the video had included the mention of the other greenhouse gases that “we conclude require substantial and sustained reductions.”

The narrator voicing over the terrors of methane from cows…image: cow back end, milk, cheese, sour cream.
The narrator voicing over the nitrous oxide from rice, corn, wheat, and other basic necessities of life..image: cultivated fields, bread, pasta, rice, Golden Rice.
The narrator voicing over the horrors of pm from fireplaces…image, spy satellites zooming in on Alaskan homes in winter.
The narrator voicing over the horrors of Co2 from travel…image: mom loading the back of the pick up and hooking up an RV to go on vacation.
The narrator voicing over the depredations of refrigeration…image: home refrigerators opening and destroying the planet, air conditioners on homes and hospitals, refer trucks hauling chicken and lettuce to anywhere in the US.

This video is lacking a few important details about just how concerned the scientists really are about ghgs from human activity. The scientists have found ghgs in every motion.

Jquip says November 24, 2013 at 10:11 am
…
However, comma, when a line spectra is absorbed — IR in this case — then the frequency of the bond is higher. So on collision, and in the sum of all velocities, you’ve got faster race cars on the track. Some will certainly be lower speed collisions than otherwise for precisely this reason. And some will be higher. But otherwise you shouldn’t expect that the distribution will do anything differently than what gives rise to the Planck curve in general.

Excepting, of course, you are dealing with elements that seem to behave in a manner more like little ‘tuning forks’ than an ‘amalgamated mass’ of atoms as in a ‘solid’ …

Recommended reading subject: IR Spectroscopy. Note the movement of ‘charges’ leading to EM (electromagnetic) wave emissions (and capable of absorption) at the various wavelengths owing to specific vibrational modes of different molecule combinations:

“The Stefan-Boltzmann Law applies to blackbodies and greybodies; gas molecules are neither.”

In a nitrogen atom that has gained energy perhaps through a collision electron(s) move to a higher energy state, …

Your previous cite specifically specifies “dc discharges in flowing nitrogen at pressures from ¼ Torr to 10 Torr” (quite low pressure). Now comes the question, how much energy is transferred in a collision and can that be transferred to directly to a(n) electron(s) such that IR emission can take place …

Apparently the IR energy levels emitted by N2 are a very small fraction of that emitted from CO2 and H2O and employs/harnesses a mechanism that differs from the GHGs as well.

Thank you very much for that! Now we need a Lord Monckton to send them your reply and threaten to go to the high court in Britain and have them refuse to show this to British children without telling them of the errors.

Ahem…believe it or not, I was just looking up Monckton’s email! Do you know it? I know some people here have his ear as he posts regularly at WUWT.

Anyway, no luck in finding it yet but I did find this little gem which was what prompted me to try and get hold of him. It’s a very recent interview on the back of the AR5 SPM release. I think the graphing fraud I highlighted above is exactly what he is talking about hauling people up in front of the judges for. Especially the slashing of the 1998 temperature- there is absolutely no excuse for that.

Lord Monckton on the Fraud of the 2013/2014 IPCC Report

Lord Monckton talks about the fraud issue from 13:10 and says we should treat this sort of thing like any other sort of fraud where there is some sort of position of responsibility to tell the truth when advising governments, especially when it affects the economy and especially when you are being remunerated for the research and advising.

I remember now, as you say, he filed in the British courts over the Al Gore film being shown in schools. I never knew the outcome- but he says in the video that he won and the education department had to issue an erratum, sent to all schools that screened it. So that’s what you are referring to and I was listening to him at the same time you were writing it!

Being forced to issue an erratum would have been major news but, of course, the BBC would never have dared report it.

Been single going on 9 years. And am too old for most men here. Plus, I like fishing and hunting just as much. So at the moment it is a neck and neck tie as to whether or not to go fishing or go out to dinner with a man. Given some of my dates I’ve had these last few years, fishing wins.

The IPCC Climate Conference…Poland? has received very little coverage, this video is sheer desperation. The Canadians, Japs and Aussies have already backed off CAGW and the Germans are building coal fired power stations again. Our Prime Minister Cameron wants rid of the “Green Crap” leaving Obama still wanting to save the world, code meaning the introduction of “Green Taxes”.
The Planet may well have warmed since the end of the last Ice Age but has been cooling since the Holocene Climatic Optimum….overall cooling 10,000 years.
The whole thing is a half baked farce and we now have Third World countries claiming compensation for weather events….
On behalf of all of us the only comment starts with the sixth letter of the alphabet and ends with the word off….!!!

He’s out there. A lady as clever as you will win. So glad you see right through all this micro argument about 3/5ths of the square root of f&*k all. If barely-there GHG could heat a planet by +33C they’d be piped in to all our lofts and glazing cavities.

If people saw tanks and planes coming at them, they would realise they were under attack. When it comes imposing taxes on minute contributions by industrialised societies to minute quantities of a vital gas, people lose whatever IQ they previously had and start pontificating about how much science they ‘know’.

Scute says:
November 24, 2013 at 6:10 pm@ Werner Brozek
Sorry I put an ‘n’ in your name!
No problem!

As for Lord Monckton’s email, I did have it at one time, but I no longer have it. However even if I did, I would not feel that I would be at liberty to share it. However what I will do is let justthefacts know you want it and let him decide how to respond to you. He may either send you his email or ask Lord Monckton himself to read the following and decide how he wants to respond.

Yes, I agree. I wouldn’t want share an email without permission and always do so via the mods (on other sites).

However, simply sending the comments to Lord Monckton is a good Idea. It would achieve as much or more than I could by sending them myself.

As with asking for my comment to be posted to YouTube, with or without my name, I don’t need any recognition if someone competent like Lord Monckton takes it on. I’m better employed ferreting out the next lie.

Pamela Gray says:
November 24, 2013 at 12:54 pm
“I stand corrected. The end includes three messages AND a call to action to significantly reduce greenhouse gas “usage”. There is only one way to do that: reduce the population of CO2 exhalers. I am guessing that many of these delegates that contribute research, attend meetings and support the IPCC believe in such drastic measures. This includes world leaders. History repeats.”

There was an article in Scientific American a few years back, sorry I cannot quote it, but its implication was exactly your point. It was regarding ice core data that supposedly showed evidence of reduced CO2 increases during the two great plagues of 450 AD and 1450 AD where 40 to 50% ofthe earth’s human population died and caused reduced CO2 at those times. The main thrust of this article was that people create CO2 and methane due to heating, farming and raising livestock irrespective of the technological levels of the times. More people =more harm to the environment. Though I am sure that more people =more CO2, it is not clear that a good solution is less people, not stated as such in the column but the implied logic was evident.

Comment and ratings were on until at least 2:00 UTC today (25th Nov). They obviously couldn’t take the heat of all the critical comments and downratings were a third of the total.

The alarmists were defending against all skeptic comments that argued a case along with evidence. However, they were completely silent on my comment which was posted there and above in this stream. I think that speaks volumes about their intention to deceive via the manipulation of graphs and input data.

Just like all the governments of the world, UN expert economists, bankers, auditors and regulators, world bank (including Lord Stern!) , financial journalists, MSM, uncle tom cobley and all, who missed the rather obvious fact that granting mortgages of 125% of value might be a little crazy. I saw it advertised on the TV and remarked to my wife ” how does that work?”. Seems it didn’t !

Anyone out there handy with mutlimedia creation applications?
Genesis’ “Jesus He knows me” lends itself perfectly to a spoof of IPeCaC on YouTube (call it a video response)
suggested lyrics as follows:

IPeCaC they know me

You see the headline on the TV screen
coming at you every COP gab-fest
see that bullshit on the internet
that crap comes from me

On the front page of the news-pa-per
There’s no question why I’m smiling
you buy a future for your children
you buy a piece of me

I’ll give you the future you wanted
Deliver you from 2 degrees and high sea
don’t need to believe in science or fact
just believe in me

Cos Gaia she knows me
and she knows I talk shite
Paid lip service to gaia, all my life
oh yeah you know me
and 97% say I’m right
they’re repeatedly telling me
all the models are alright

I believe in the theory
with my everloving models behind me
but they don’t about the de-cline
or the ice Antarctica grew last night

Do you belive in warming?
Cos that is what I’m selling
and if you don’t wanna get burned
I’ll fleece you right

You wont be able to heat your house
Or get into your car
better not think for yourself
cos my meme’s already spread far

watermellons they know me
and they agree I’m right
I been talking their cod-shit, all my life
oh yes they know me
97 % say I’m right
they’re repeatedly telling me
all the models are alright

won’t catch us paractising what we’re preaching
won’t find us flying no e-con-o-my
but we’ll deliver you from runaway warming
if you pay us lots and try to be green
Carbon tax takes care of you
Just pay like we say, don’t do as we do

I’m counting my blessings
I found paid idleness
and I’m getting richer, day by day
you can find me on sceptical science
or find me on de smog blog
donate to me anyway you want
Just do it right away

There’ll be no denier in your town
You must believe all I’m saying
if you wanna be politically correct
fall to your knees and start paying

cos IPeCaC they know me
they just KNOW I’m right
I been talking runaway warming, all my life
oh yeah, you’ve heard me
the concensus say I’m right
they’re repeatedly telling me
all the models are alright
…Alright!

deleted comments ? I wonder if we can get a copy from someone’s cache,
( eg. by getting them to disconnect from the internet, before they try to look at the page so that the copy of the cached is shown to them)

„ Climate models are by far not as perfect as it is suggested in the video – in fact most climate models cannot even reproduce the observed annual global mean temperature (h/t Eduardo Zorita) “

E. Zorita is a Co-Author of the 2007 paper: “Detection of Human Influence on a New, Validated 1500-Year Temperature Reconstruction (DOI: 10.1175/JCLI4011.1) by the lead Author G.C. Hegerl. The legendary Gerald Bond has suggested in 2001 a solar influence on the climate on Earth and has believed in a 1500 year cycle.

It is now twelve years ago, Gerald Bond has given his data to the community and it is now five years ago, G.C. Hegerl and Co-Author E. Zorita have given their data to the community. Moreover it is well known in the science community that the two Earth axis wobble frequencies creates an interference period of 6.25 years and that some four periods of 6.25 year or every 25 years the main ENSO oscillations will repeathttp://www.volker-doormann.org/images/ensoshift1.gif .

I do not know why the climate science community has not done their job to separate the well known effects from the unknown temperature anomalies (called ‘natural anomalies’) simple by removing the well known effects.

In the same way the volcano effects can be removed from the data, also the ENSO or MEI data can be removed carefully from the observed monthly (!) global mean temperature http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/uah_rss_8_r.gf.gif , because it is necessary to take the time constant into account the heat of the equator becomes global.

The bad situation in the climate scene is not only the result of the bad work of the IPCC, it is also a result of the climate science community’s fail discussing global all the data with the scientific intension to find physically coherence in all the data. Now to direct the finger to the popular IPCC it’s a joke. E. Zorita is aware on the solar 900 year cycles astronomical background since February 2010, and also A.W., who has rejected it as ‘curve fitting’.

It’s the same game as the game of the IPCC game, and ‘no science’, like ‘no sports’.